Marc Hogan

May 27, 2014 –
Music listeners find and share new songs through social media, and now Billboard and Twitter have launched the newest campaign to measure and track those online actions. First announced in March, and coming on the heels of last year's short-lived Twitter #music initiative, the Billboard Twitter Real-Time Charts are online now. Where traditional charts are weekly, the new system homes in on minute-to-minute social media trends.Leading the way is the Trending 140 chart, which the industry bible describes as "an up-to-the minute ranking of songs shared in the U.S., measured by acceleration over the past hour." Also new is the Emerging Artists chart, which measures "the most shared songs on Twitter in the U.S.

May 27, 2014 –
Against Me!'s Laura Jane Grace wasn't satisfied with Arcade Fire's explanation of their "We Exist" video, which stars Andrew Garfield in a wig and a dress and came billed as the "story of one young person's struggle with gender identity."Grace, who is transgender, had called out Reflektor band last week for casting The Amazing Spider-Man's star instead of "an actual 'Trans' actor." Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler and the video's director, Dan Wilson, in an interview with The Advocate, pointed to the song's inspiration in the lives of gay Jamaican youth and Garfield's passion for the project.

May 27, 2014 –
Parquet Courts have unleashed Sunbathing Animal. The follow-up to the Brooklyn indie-punks' Essential Light Up Gold LP is due out June 3 via What's Your Rupture?/Mom + Pop. They've already shared fevered title track "Sunbathing Animal," debuted the iconoclast's anthem "Black and White" on Late Night With Seth Meyers, and sprawled out on the slack "Instant Disassembly." Now the SPIN profile subjects are streaming their new 13-track effort in its entirety.Listen over at NPR or The Guardian.

May 23, 2014 –
Major-league baseball fans have had their eyes opened to Swedish pop group Ace of Base. Colorado Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki is off to a torrid start this season, batting an unheard-of .552 average in 19 games at the team's Coors Field. He's been so hot, in fact, that Mike Krukow, an announcer for the San Francisco Giants, this week accused the 29-year-old of stealing opposing teams' signs.Tulo's response in the Rockies' game yesterday (May 22) against the Giants was priceless. According to MLB.com, he used Ace of Base's global 1992 smash "The Sign," with its instantly catchy "I saw the sign" lyrical refrain, as his at-bat walk-up music.

May 23, 2014 –
Great pop singers can take deeply private thoughts, express them onstage in front of thousands of people, and make you forget how weird that is. There's little debate around here that Beyoncé is a great pop singer, and "XO" is the great pop song on her great late-2013 album, Beyoncé, which in its sheer breadth and idiosyncrasy it feels wrong to describe as simply "pop." John Mayer comes at pop from a slightly different angle, but Jay Z is a fan, and the guitar-slinging singer-songwriter has unearthed something special and new beneath the Mrs. Carter-Knowles single's radio-seeking gloss."XO" has three writers — The-Dream and OneRepublic's Ryan Tedder, along with Knowles — and even more producers. It soars on fidgeting synths, an improbable Challenger-disaster sample, and call-and-response verses until it demands a communal singalong.

May 23, 2014 –
Anyone who wished Kelis' Essential new album Food could be a little bit more adventurous, your order is ready. Production by TV on the Radio's Dave Sitek ensures the R&B shape-shifter is never merely retro even when she throws back to old-school soul, as on the magnificently howling single "Rumble." But as wonderful as it is to hear her, say, perform the song on Conan, those who remember her as a muse for the Neptunes back when Pharrell's taste was more cutting-edge in music than in haberdashery could be excused if they longed for something that felt more like the future. Enter Actress, the gnomic U.K.

May 23, 2014 –
All that glitters isn't gold. The lawyer who made headlines with a potential lawsuit claiming Led Zeppelin illegally ripped off the iconic intro to their 1971 classic-rock staple "Stairway to Heaven" just got a brutal courtroom dressing-down over a separate case. Despite reports, the Led Zep copyright infringement suit hasn't been filed yet, according to The Hollywood Reporter, and you probably shouldn't hold your breath.The attorney, Francis Malofiy, represented the plaintiff in a copyright infringement lawsuit against Usher (who — come to think of it — now that he has collaborated with the Afghan Whigs, might want to consider leading a Zeppelin reunion if Robert Plant still won't do it).

May 23, 2014 –
Will marriage bring about a warmer, cuddlier Kanye West? Earlier this year, the rapper and producer postponed a tour to finish what concert promoter Live Nation said would be a new 2014 album. With West and fiancée Kim Kardashian's wedding scheduled for May 24, Billboard took a look at the available information on the follow-up to Yeezus, SPIN's 2013 Album of the Year, and it turns out the LP might be more welcoming than its predecessor.West's Yeezus successor had 12 songs as of two weeks ago, an unnamed source told Billboard. The source, who'd heard six of the songs, described them as "mostly a mixture of soul samples and tamed Yeezus-esque darkness ... nothing abrasive."That would square with what West collaborator Evian Christ said earlier this year. "I've got to get home and write an Otis Redding–style beat for him," Christ told self-titled. "He emailed last night.

May 23, 2014 –
Big things keep happening for Little Dragon, but their jazzy electro-soul has stayed small, or at least intimate. When 2011's silky, alluring Ritual Union came along, brassy-voiced singer Yukimi Nagano had already collaborated with Gorillaz, Raphael Saadiq, and TV on the Radio member David Sitek's Maximum Balloon. More recently, the Swedish group has become a go-to collaborator for OutKast's Big Boi. Earlier this month, Little Dragon released their latest album, Nabuma Rubberband. Watch them smolder all through the new record's "Klapp Klapp" above and "Killing Me" below, in a performance last night on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and then go hear them with recent SPIN cover star Future on Los Angeles electronic musician Nosaj Thing's "Klapp Klapp" remix.

May 23, 2014 –
Don't fear the ringer. And we don't mean cowbell. Will Ferrell and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith staged their long-teased drum battle last night on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. But the actor may have had an advantage over his rock lookalike. And it all culminated in the Chili Peppers making their first late-night TV performance since 2006.The "traditional drum-off," as Ferrell insisted, played by "traditional rules," followed months of trash talk. After the Saturday Night Live alum acknowledged looking like the Super Bowl stickman, they raised more than $300,000 in donations for the charity Cancer for College, and the drum battle was on.In matching KISS T-shirts, black leather jackets, and backwards blue baseball caps, the two sat down with host Jimmy Fallon, each talking in character as the other about their rivalry.